Organizations are finding every day that cloud computing can move maintenance issues into the background, freeing your IT staff to think about ways technology might increase business revenue. I won’t pretend this is not scary. Staff who have made their living patching the software on user computers can suddenly be made redundant. They might be told that the work they have been doing no longer matters. This can be disturbing on many levels, even morally.

At the top, we would hope, movement to the cloud is a step toward greater security, reliability, and scalability, all of which have enormous benefits. But at the lower levels of the organization, it can appear that management has decided to give up on maintenance. If you’re the maintenance person, that can stoke discontent, even outrage. Management needs to make the decision to move processes to the cloud based on what’s good for the organization, and that may not be the same as what’s good for the people in the organization. Implementing the decision probably involves more consideration of the latter than the former.

A recent article in Computerworld documented the black market for insider services: “In one instance, a hacker solicited bank insiders to plant malware directly onto the bank’s network.” When criminals are putting out bids to find insiders who can help them gain access to company networks, the last thing any IT organization can afford is to have alienated people in the ranks.

Like I said, cloud computing can move maintenance issues into the background. But it would be a short-sighted IT organization that decided to go to the cloud solely to realize cost savings in maintenance. The cloud opens new opportunities, and it will take trained people to see and exploit those opportunities on behalf of your business. My advice is to train as many staff as you can in cloud computing. Reducing or eliminating certain functions doesn’t eliminate responsibility for those functions. It is your trained cloud computing staff who will, among other things, anticipate maintenance and infrastructure needs and monitor their implementation by your cloud providers.

For training in cloud computing, Logical Operations is here to help. Our vendor-neutral training is certified by the National Cloud Technologists Association (NCTA), which administers the CloudMASTER® certification.

The NCTA developed three courses — Cloud Technologies, Cloud Operations, and Cloud Architecture — that lead ultimately to CloudMASTER® certification. The program provides IT professionals with solid skills in cloud technologies, cloud architecture, and management of cloud infrastructure, as well as an understanding of modern web services deployment and administration. Best of all, this is not proprietary training. Technologies covered include Microsoft Windows and Azure, Amazon Web Services, VMware, Linux, Google Docs, Drupal, Wordpress, OpenStack, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, Chef, and Chef Solo.

Through our exclusive partnership, Logical Operations delivers NCTA’s certification training and exams in Cloud Technologies, Cloud Operations, and Cloud Architecture. We deliver the instructor-led courses through our CHOICE® platform. If you’d like to review the course outlines, just call 1.800.889.8350 or email insidesales@logicaloperations.com. Just remember, a certified CloudMASTER® is much less likely to consider the future without fear or resentment, and therefore much less likely to be browsing the dark web looking for ways to monetize discontent.